Cultural Ecology

Author(s):  
Thomas J. Bassett ◽  
Karl S. Zimmerer

Cultural ecology in the 1990s was a highly productive and rapidly growing specialty group within geography. The group’s scholarship has contributed to a number of core themes and concepts in geography and in related fields within the social and biogeophysical sciences and humanities (Butzer 1989, 1990a; Porter 1991; B. L. Turner 1997a; Zimmerer 1996c). This review evaluates the central research contributions—findings, themes, concepts, methods—of North American geographical cultural ecology over this decade (1990–9). The evaluation is based on the clustering of the contributions of the 1990s into eight main areas: long-term cultural ecology; resource management; local knowledge; pastoralism; environmental politics; protected areas; gender ecology; and environmental discourses (Figs 8.1 and 8.2). Notable accomplishments and characteristic approaches are reviewed in each area. Emphasis is placed on the continued evolution of the common ground of cultural ecology and its most prominent offshoot, political ecology. A nature-culture or nature-society core is central to advances of the 1990s. This core is made up of interacting dialectical processes of culture-and-consciousness and domestic-and-political economy, on the one hand, and non-human nature, on the other hand (Zimmerer and Young 1998: 5). Increased awareness of this recursive interaction has led to a historical perspective that is common to much work in cultural and political ecology during the past decade (Figs 8.1 and 8.2). Culture and society in environmental interactions are considered with new importance granted to the multiple forms and contingencies of spatial scale, from the local to the global, as well as varied temporal frames. Culture and society are conceptualized in new ways while, at the same time, the biogeophysical environments themselves are thought of as increasingly complex and less spatially and temporally predictable than was previously presumed.

PMLA ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 81 (5) ◽  
pp. 381-388
Author(s):  
William Park

But the Discovery [of when to laugh and when to cry] was reserved for this Age, and there are two Authors now living in this Metropolis, who have found out the Art, and both brother Biographers, the one of Tom Jones, and the other of Clarissa.author of Charlotte SummersRather than discuss the differences which separate Fielding and Richardson, I propose to survey the common ground which they share with each other and with other novelists of the 1740's and 50's. In other words I am suggesting that these two masters, their contemporaries, and followers have made use of the same materials and that as a result the English novels of the mid-eighteenth century may be regarded as a distinct historic version of a general type of literature. Most readers, it seems to me, do not make this distinction. They either think that the novel is always the same, or they believe that one particular group of novels, such as those written in the early twentieth century, is the form itself. In my opinion, however, we should think of the novel as we do of the drama. No one kind of drama, such as Elizabethan comedy or Restoration comedy, is the drama itself; instead, each is a particular manifestation of the general type. Each kind bears some relationship to the others, but at the same time each has its own identity, which we usually call its conventions. By conventions I mean not only stock characters, situations, and themes, but also notions and assumptions about the novel, human nature, society, and the cosmos itself. If we compare one kind of novel to another without first considering the conventions of each, we are likely to make the same mistake that Thomas Rymer did when he blamed Shakespeare for not conforming to the canons of classical French drama.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 132
Author(s):  
Hamdi Hameed Yousif

One of the post-modernist approaches to literary criticism is the queer criticism which has not been evaluated properly. Queer criticism can refer to any piece of literary criticism that interprets a text from a non-straight perspective. Therefore, it includes both lesbian and gay criticism. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to trace the social and political reasons behind the emergence of Queer criticism in the late twentieth century till it acquired momentum in the twenty-first century. After trying to define the terms related to the Queer criticism, the paper tries to examine the poetics of queer (gay and lesbian) literary works and to point out the main characteristic features of this critical approach by identifying the criteria and the textual evidence by which a literary work is labeled queer. It, also tries to shed light on the common features between queer criticism and feminism, on the one hand, and queer criticism and the deconstructuralist approach on the other hand. The final section of the study is a critique which points out the negative aspects of this approach.


Author(s):  
Johann P. Arnason ◽  
Marek Hrubec

Problems of social revolutions and/or transformations belong to the classical agenda of social inquiry, as well as to the most prominent real and potential challenges encountered by contemporary societies. Among revolutionary events of the last decades, particular attention has been drawn to the changes that unfolded at the turn of the 1990s and brought the supposedly bipolar (in fact incipiently multipolar) world to an end. The downfall of East Central European Communist regimes in 1989 and of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the beginning of a new era, originally characterised on the one hand by the relaxation of international tensions and on the other by the ascendancy of Western unilateralism. The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soviet collapse prompts the authors of this book to reflect on revolutions and transformations, both from a long-term historical perspective and with regard to the post-Communist scene. The social changes unfolding in Eastern and Central Europe are not only epoch-making historical turns; their economic, social and political aspects, often confusing and unexpected, have also raised new questions and triggered debates about fundamental theoretical issues. Moreover, they have had a significant impact on developments elsewhere in the world, in both Western and developing countries.


Author(s):  
Philip Manow

The first chapter motivates the book’s central research question: how did the German variant of capitalism emerge, and what today is its central functioning logic? The chapter argues that past and recent accounts of Germany’s economic performance and economic policy have failed to fully explain how long-term stable economic coordination could have evolved in as large a country as Germany, and that this has also translated into an often biased view of Germany’s current economic policies. The chapter sketches the basic argument of the book—namely that the German welfare state was the prime means of economic coordination for unions and employers, labor and capital—and situates it in two relevant literatures: the Varieties of Capitalism literature on the one hand and the Comparative Welfare State literature on the other. The chapter also presents an overview of the book.


Africa ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. 534-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jama Mohamed

AbstractThe social basis of ecological change in Somaliland during the colonial period was politics, especially imperial politics: the division of the Somali country into various colonial spheres, the loss of territory under the 1897 Anglo‐Ethiopian Treaty, and the pacification wars. These events, as it were, reduced the land available for use by the pastoralists, which led to overgrazing, soil erosion and ecological degradation. Moreover, the income of the population declined throughout the colonial period. Even though during the late colonial period the ‘nominal’ price of pastoral goods increased, the ‘real’ price of pastoral commodities did not increase to cover the loss of income caused by inflation and the high cost of imported goods. These two processes—on the one hand ecological degradation and on the other the decline of income—could be understood if they were read contrapuntally. Such reading is possible only if we give full attention to political ecology: why ecology had changed, the politics of that change, and the impact it had on the income and everyday life of the population.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30
Author(s):  
Nenad Miscevic ◽  

What is the role of toleration in the present-day crisis, marked by the inflow of refugees and increase in populism? The seriousness of the crises demands efforts of active toleration, acceptance, and integration of refugees and the like. Active toleration brings with itself a series of very demanding duties, divided into immediate ones involving immediate Samaritan aid to people at our doors and the long-term ones involving their acculturation and possibilities of decent life for them. A cosmopolitan attitude can contribute a lot. In the context of a refugee crisis, cosmopolitanism is not disappearing but showing its non-traditional, more Samaritan face turned not to distant strangers, as the classical one, but towards strangers at our doors.We have conjectured that this work of active toleration can diminish the need for the passive one: the well-integrated immigrant is no longer seen as a strange, exotic person with an incomprehensible and unacceptable attitude, but as one of us so that her attitudes become less irritating and provocative. The social-psychological approach that sees integration as involving both the preservation of central aspects of the original identity and the copy-pasting of the new one over it offers an interesting rationale for the conjecture: once integrated, the former newcomer is perceived as one of ‘us’ and her views stop being exotic, incomprehensible and a priori unacceptable. Given the amount of need for toleration, and difficulties and paradoxes connected with its passive variety, the conjecture, if true, might be a piece of good news.Finally, we have briefly touched the question of deeper causes of the crisis. Once one turns to this question, the traditional cosmopolitan issues come back to the forefront: the deep poverty and unjust distribution on the one hand, and conflicts and wars on the other. Cosmopolitans have a duty to face these issues, and this is where active global toleration leads in our times.


Maska ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (200) ◽  
pp. 111-119
Author(s):  
Blaž Kavšek

The article, first published on historical Radio Študent show Repetitio, deals with three distinctive historical ideal types (the New York intellectual, the honnête homme and the dandy), focusing on two of them (the honnête homme and the dandy). As their common ideological core, it identifies a distinct, in two cases even explicitly contradictory relationship with the social mechanisms of self-promotion. Despite the great geographical and temporal distance between these three ideal types, it seeks in their self-presentation manoeuvres the common ground between the opposing imperatives of modesty and the need for communicating personal virtues and achievements to the wider public.


2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 385
Author(s):  
Mahamood M. Hassan

The ability of the Social Security retirement program to pay the promised benefits to future generations has been debated since the 1960s. Various suggestions have been made, but the one that has attracted the most passionate opinions has been whether some or all of the Social Security Trust Funds should be invested in the stock market, which would yield higher returns than on the Federal government issued bonds (Treasury Bonds). In reviewing 88 years of financial market data going back to 1926, the author shows that investing in the stock market (using the S&P 500 as the proxy) will most probably produce higher returns for the U.S. taxpayer (investor) over the long term, but the investor will have to be prepared for a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows.


2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 628-635
Author(s):  
D.V. Rimashevskiy ◽  
◽  
I.F. Akhtyamov ◽  
P.N. Fedulichev ◽  
Wessam Zaalan ◽  
...  

Abstract Over the past decades, there has been a steady increase in the incidence of osteomyelitis. It is associated with an increased use of implants in traumatology and orthopedics. The social aspects of osteomyelitis are, on the one hand, significant financial costs for the healthcare system, and on the other hand, high recurrence and re-infection in the treatment of joint pathology associated with long-term loss of work ability and a high risk of patient’s disability. Purpose To conduct a search and analysis of publications in Russian and English, devoted to the problem of osteomyelitis and periprosthetic infection, on the basis of which to summarize the main current notions about the etiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of osteomyelitis. Materials and methods The search was carried out in the Pubmed and CyberLeninka databases of literature sources over the past 10 years. The data were analyzed and compared with the materials from earlier publications. Only publications from peer-reviewed journals were considered for analysis. Results and discussion Success in the treatment of peri-implant infection with prosthesis re-implantation and satisfactory joint function has been achieved in only just more than a half of patients. Recent studies have significantly changed the understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of osteomyelitis. It has been proven that in osteomyelitis and implant-associated infection, four reservoirs of infection are formed in the patient's body: abscesses in soft tissues and bone marrow canal, biofilms on the surface of implants and necrotic tissues, intracellular colonization with bacteria of the macroorganism and lacunar-canalicular system. Understanding the mechanisms of osteomyelitis development and its course forces the specialists to take a fresh look at the causes of failures in the fight against such a severe pathology and change approaches to its prevention, diagnosis and treatment.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-170
Author(s):  
Marco Bresciani

How did intellectuals react to the economic crisis of 2007-2008 and its long-term backlash? What did they learn from the main twentieth-century political and social experiences, in order to make a new sense of the traditional cultures of the Left? In order to answer these crucial issues, this proposal will analyze the paths of the well-known historians E. Hobsbawm and T. Judt and their apparently similar, but actually different reactions to the crisis. First, I will focus on their respective books: How to Change the World (2011) and Ill Fares the Land (2010). On the one hand, Hobsbawm?s critical approach to the post-1991 world, shaped by his lifelong fidelity to Marxism and his persistent sympathy for the Russian Revolution, was connected to his catastrophic vision of the end of the both conflicting and collaborative dynamics between capitalism and socialism. On the other hand, Judt?s re-thinking of the social-democratic tradition, compelled by the global transformations of the social question, was inspired by his connections with the East Central European dissidents? anti-totalitarian liberalism and by his critical approach to the engagement of the French intellectuals. Second, I will investigate their different interpretations of the ?Golden Age? of post-1945 Europe (with special regard to the long-term impact of the crisis of 1929 and to the influence of Soviet communism) and of the causes of its crisis. Third, I will show how, in spite of their common reference to Marx, late Hobsbawm?s and Judt?s historical visions - respectively combined with determinism and moralism - provide opposite ways of coping with the legacies of the 20th century and of criticizing the language of neoliberal economy within the Left.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document